Displaced lives: rethinking survival, social reproduction, and (in)security with refugees

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examine the practices of survival that Rohingya and Syrian refugees perform as they confront multiple forms of violence resulting from their forced displacement in India and Turkey, respectively. We consider these practices as they are performed in the everyday and reflect on how they expand existing debates in social reproduction feminism. Social reproduction refers to those practices that are essential for the everyday and generational maintenance of life. First, we show that for people living in conditions of prolonged displacement and violence, practices of social reproduction become a matter of survival that entails “making secure” amid the insecurity of displacement. Second, we demonstrate that these practices highlight the role of not only the welfare state but also the security state for social reproduction. We propose the concept of the “(in)securitization of social reproductive capacities” to examine how state and non-state actors hinder social reproduction as much as they support it and how displaced people negotiate with this. We conclude that survival, including the ways in which refugees cope with insecurity, care, and sustain their lives, can be a meaningful tool to pluralize understandings of social reproduction, bridging insights from feminist political economy, critical migration, and security studies.